More than half the owners of medical-marijuana centers in Colorado have criminal arrest or conviction records for crimes such as dealing drugs, sexual assault, burglary and weapons violations, according to statistics developed by the Drug Enforcement Administration and obtained by 9News.

The DEA says 18 percent of medical-marijuana-center owners have been convicted of felonies.

“This business seems to have an inappropriate number of people with criminal backgrounds involved as business owners,” said Kevin Merrill, assistant special agent in charge for the Denver field division of the DEA. “I would be hard-pressed to find any other business group where their members have so many criminal violations, arrests and convictions.”

DEA statistics show that while 8 percent of Colorado adults have been arrested in connection with drug crimes, 28 percent of the medical-marijuana-center owners have drug histories.

Others have been arrested on assault, burglary, domestic violence, rape or weapons charges. Among the dispensary owners, there are also four prior arrests on counts of murder, attempted murder or involvement in a homicide.

Many of those will be weeded out of the medical-marijuana business Sunday when new rules take effect prohibiting anyone with a drug felony conviction or anyone with a felony sentence within the past five years from obtaining a medical-marijuana-center license in Colorado.

Businesses that sell medical marijuana have commonly been referred to as dispensaries, but the state now officially calls them centers.

Medical-marijuana advocates, many of whom argued against the new state law when it was being debated in the legislature, are bracing for the impact.

“They don’t think it’s fair,” said Sensible Colorado executive director Brian Vicente. “A lot of people have been convicted of felonies, or any crime, and they have done their time, they’ve paid their debt to society, and now want to move on and work in this field and aren’t able to do so.”

Vicente believes someone with a criminal record for marijuana may be best suited to work in the industry because it shows they have experience working with the drug.

“Many of those people the DEA arrested themselves for growing marijuana legally under Colorado law, so I don’t think they’re a credible source for providing information about folks who are following state law,” Vicente said.

The DEA used public records, advertisements and property records to collect the names of medical-marijuana- center owners. Then agents ran criminal background checks.

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